July, 2014:

For several months, we have been receiving hints that all is not well with the USS Pension Fund. Government demonstrates its lack of enthusiasm for Defined Benefit schemes such as USS by setting tough rules for their solvency. According to the rules, the assets of the scheme must cover the calculated future liabilities; this is perhaps reasonable, although the scheme can call in emergency on the Employers for further contributions. The real killer is that the future value of the USS assets is calculated based on gilt yields. These have been deliberately depressed by the government through Quantitative Easing. We all know they will rise when the government stops creating money but, in the meantime, a deficit can be conjured up to justify an attack on our pensions.

Here’s the main meat of the employers’ proposals:

The final salary section of the USS will be closed to existing members.

The final salary benefits that existing USS members build up before the date the changes are implemented will be calculated based on their individual salaries at the date the changes come into force and from that date on will be increased each year in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). This means that benefits at retirement will no longer be linked to a member’s final salary at retirement.

All members of USS—both existing Final Salary and new—will join the career revalued benefits (CRB) section of the USS for future service.

Benefits in the CRB section will be based on the same accrual rate as now– members will build up benefits based on the stingy accrual rate of 1/80th of pensionable salary per year. Each year their benefits will be increased in line with CPI (guaranteed up to 5% with half of any additional increase in CPI up to 15% i.e. a maximum increase of 10% per year). This is, so far, the same as the CRB scheme already imposed on newer staff.

Benefits in the CRB section will only apply to salary up to a salary threshold—a fixed upper amount of pensionable pay. The THES article suggests a £100,000 threshold, but our National Pension Officer thinks £40,000 more likely. This, as you see below, will hit many of us quite hard. Pay above the threshold goes into a Defined Contribution pension.

So, if you are in the Final Salary section, the big news is that benefits already earned will not be paid out as final salary but at inflation-corrected salary as of (probably) October 2015. Anybody with a reasonable expectation of being promoted after that date will lose a lot of value in the contributions they have already earned. And you also lose out on later contributions as CRB is much less generous.

If you are (unlucky and) already in the CRB section, you will lose because of the cap on Defined Benefit contributions.

I have tried to do some sums, based on somebody who reaches the top of Level 6 (Associate Professor) at the end of 30 years service. Here’s how it looks to me:
Scheme Pension Lump sum Effective value of pot
USS Final Salary 22,300 66,900 £660,100
Current USS CRB 18,100 54,200 £534,700
Employer proposals 14,500 72,500 £486,400

I have tried to compute an overall value for the USS pension as a “retirement pot”. As you can see, a CRB member loses about £48,000 from her “pot” because of the worse treatment of pay over £40,000. If you ask, I’ll try to explain the calculations, but they assume an annuity comparable to the USS pension would pay 3.5% of the “pot” and that the Defined Contribution “pot” grows at 4%.

This is all horrible, but is currently only an employer proposal. Experience from 2011, however, suggests that the employers will be able to force it through the USS consultation process. If we want to stop it, we’ll probably need to take industrial action.

UCU South-West region (led by Bath) had a gazebo on the lawn in front of the main stage. That’s the first time, I think, UCU has had a stall of its own.

We marched with four UCU banners: Southampton, Bath, Keele and Newport (Wales). We also had members from Birmingham City in the march. And University of Southampton Unison marched with their banner too. In the past, Southampton has been on its own.

I bought a miners strike anniversary badge from Anne Scargill. I’ve been down a working (then) pit (Markham, by the M1 near Bolsover): out and back on the man-riding belt and crawling along a working face between the coal-cutter belt and the collapse behind the props. It’s not a career I’d want to take up.

Rose brought along the copy of Zola’s Germinal that she has been reading since we visited the Calais Mining Museum at the end of June.

But now—still—there’s no work at all in many of the villages. Visit Easington Colliery if you dare.

I was also only a couple of years out of junior school myself when the Aberfan disaster happened. The A470 dual carriageway to Merthyr runs over the tip site. And the government stole from the disaster fund to finance moving the tip—eventually to make way for the road.

That was a Nationalised industry cutting fatal corners—although the pits were even worse under private owners. At least they all got pithead baths when Nationalised.